While making a brand prominent on Facebook, brand advocates have fallen into a dilemma about ‘what content would make my brand work?’ since the time Facebook changed its logistics, yet again, quite recently. Well, you can’t blame Mr Zuckerberg! There’s too much content flowing on the platform. So, how do you get your content noticed? There are hundreds of content managers sitting out there, putting the best of their grey matter into attracting their audience, to their brand. It goes beyond our imagination, at times, as to what people would want to see? Is it wit and humour? Is it images of cute puppies and kitten? Or is it a smart one-liner that would gather a hundred ‘shares’ and gazillion ‘likes’?
Admit it; you’ve liked cute kitten photos, more than once. You’ve shared a cynic ‘Aunty Acid’ thought, just when you were grumpy on a Monday Morning perhaps. There are the mood and the moment of the audience which you need to cater to. Here are a few such examples, which have been tried and tested by Community/Content Managers, for a high rate of engagement.
Make the opening lines of your post grab eyeballs, longer than 3 seconds.
It’s often said that the user on Facebook makes up their mind whether or not to read the entire content, by just reading the first few words. Therefore, one spends approximately 3 seconds before deciding to move on, or read ahead. Moral? Make the opening line interesting enough to keep your audience glued to your post. Or else a hard-worked, well-thought post goes to waste. One must save themselves from saving the best for later.
Find an example of the same in the following screenshot:
Use images. Good images. Relevant and relatable to the particular brand.
It’s one thing to use good images, while it’s something completely different to use relevant images to your brand and what’s being talked about. For instance, using content like funny animal pictures on a brand page, like that of The Telegraph, may attain ‘likes’ or ‘shares’, but the purpose of the brand advocacy is lost. There would be no conversations on the page regarding the aimed discussions. A hard-news paper should ideally hold a conversation on more serious pegs, to retain its image in front of the targeted audience. For a brand like The Telegraph t2 on the other hand, funny images, different moods, gossip pegs would work a lot better, instead of a hard-hitting piece of info.
For further understanding, find examples of the same in the following screenshots:
Post pegs according to your audience.
If the audience on a brand’s page is 75% male, one cannot expect high engagement on more female-oriented posts. For instance, only 25% of the female audience would be interested in an update on make-up, or lifestyle tips for women. The majority, read: males, would ignore such an update. If the post content is dominantly female-oriented, many would go to the extent of ‘unliking’ the page. That’s something a brand shouldn’t have to experience.
(Example: Gilette/Automobiles/Etc)
Similarly, if the majority of the audience is aged between 13 and 18, there is not much of a point in going ahead with posts that do not belong to their generation. Post about ‘Marketing’ or ‘Social Media Ethics’ would not attract an audience on the TTIS page, as much as an ‘I hate Math’ post would, for instance. Therefore, the post content has to be relatable to the audience, based on certain criterions – age, gender, section, interest and the likes.
There’s no ideal length for Facebook. True. Keep it lengthy, it works. False.
Although there isn’t an ideal length, to make it a ‘perfect post’ on Facebook, however, the length is extremely important. No one wants to read an essay about what you have to say. There’s a reason why content like ‘the shortest horror story’, ‘terribly tiny tales’ and the likes have gone on to make such an impact. Everyone likes to ‘KISS’; pardon the pun…for those unaware, it stands for ‘Keep It Short and Simple’. And by ‘everyone’, we happily include the audience as well as the content creator.
So many posts to come across, in such a short time – yes, 24 hours fall short in the pace we’re moving. Nobody wants to read a fat book for days when there’s an option of getting to know the story in just 120 minutes, in a movie. Similarly, on Facebook, the audience prefers picking the more convenient version – short and simple, and the least time-consuming.
Using ‘keywords’ within your content to reach the TG.
A brand for its audience needs to find them. Although it’s common for people to look up specific brands/companies on the social media, many consumers have discovered off late that they can use the social network to find a company which would deal with the product/service they need. Therefore, it’s essential to, a) find the perfect keywords for the brand, and b) use them correctly in the content.